The Portable Dante by Dante Alighieri
THE PORTABLE DANTE
DANTE ALIGHIERI was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He followed a normal course of studies, possibly attending University in Bologna, and when he was about twenty he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had several children. He had first met Bice Portinati, whom he called Beatrice, in 1274, and when she died in 1290, he sought distraction by studying philosophy and theology and by writing the Vita nuova. During this time he became involved in the strife between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines; he became a prominent White Guelf, and when the Black Guelfs came to power in 1302, Dante, during an absence from Florence, was condemned to exile. He took refuge first in Verona, and after wandering from place to place—as far as Paris and even, some have said, to Oxford—he settled in Ravenna. While there he completed The Divine Comedy, which he began in about 1308. Dante died in Ravenna in 1321.
MARK MUSA is a graduate of Rutgers University, the University of Florence, and The John Hopkins University. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of a number of books and articles. Best known for his translations of the Italian classics (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and the poetry of the Middle Ages) as well as his Dante criticism, he holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Italian at Indiana University.
The Portable
Dante
Translated, Edited and with an
Introduction and Notes by
MARK MUSA
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Penguin Books 1995
This edition published 2003
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The Divine Comedy: Inferno
This translation first published in the United States of America by Indiana University Press 1971
Published in Penguin Books 1984
Copyright © Indiana University Press, 1971
Copyright © Mark Musa, 1984
The Divine Comedy: Purgatory
This translation first published in the United States of America by Indiana University Press 1981
Published in Penguin Books 1984
Copyright © Mark Musa, 1981
The Divine Comedy: Paradise
This translation first published in the United States of America by Indiana University Press 1984
Published in Penguin Books 1986
Copyright © Mark Musa, 1984
Vita Nuova
This translation first published in the United States of America by Indiana University Press 1973
Published in Great Britain in different format by Oxford University Press
Reprinted by arrangement with Indiana University Press
Copyright © Indiana University Press, 1973
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
[Selections. English. 1995]
The portable Dante / edited and with an introduction and notes by Mark Musa.
p. cm.
“A Penguin original”.
Includes bibliographical references.
EISBN: 9781101573822
1. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Translations into English. I. Musa, Mark. II. Title.
PQ4315. A3M87 1995
851l—dc20 94-15988
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Sabon
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FOR
ISABELLA
WITH
LOVE
CONTENTS
Editor’s Introduction
Translator’s Note
THE DIVINE COMEDY
Inferno
Purgatory
Paradise
VITA NUOVA
Selected Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
LIFE
DANTE ALIGHIERI WAS BORN in Florence in May 1265 in the district of San Martino, the son of Alighiero di Bellincione d’Alighiero. His mother died when he was young; his father, whom he seems to avoid mentioning as much as possible, remarried and produced two more children. The Alighieri family may be considered noble by reason of the titles and dignities bestowed upon its members, although by Dante’s time it seems to have been reduced to modest economic and social circumstances. According to Dante himself, the family descended from the noble seed of the Roman founders of the city (Inferno XV. 73-78). This claim remains largely unsubstantiated, as nothing is known of Dante’s ancestors before his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, who was knighted by Emperor Conrad III and died, as Dante tells us, during the Second Crusade, about 1147 (Paradiso XV. 139-148).
Like most of the city’s lesser nobility and artisans, Dante’s family was affiliated with the Guelf party, as opposed to the Ghibellines, whose adherents tended to belong to the feudal aristocracy. These two parties came into Italy from Germany, and their names represent italianized forms of those attached to the two quarreling houses of Germany, Welf and Waiblingen. In Italy the parties were at first identified with broad allegiances: to papal authority for the Guelfs, and to imperial authority in the case of the Ghibellines. Eventually, however, this church-empire distinction disappeared, and the two parties became less clearly defined in outlook and purpose. The local connotations of the parties became much more important as their issues and activities became tied to geographical situation, rivalries of neighborhoods in the same city, family feuds, and private interests. Thus the Guelfs and Ghibellines of Florence were factions peculiar to that region alone.
As far as one can tell from his writings, Dante’s recollections of family life were pleasant ones. It is fairly certain that he received a careful education, although little of it is known precisely. He may have attended the Franciscan lower schools and, later, their schools of philosophy. The family’s modest social standing did not prevent him from pursuing his studies, nor was he hindered in his effort to lead the life of a gentleman. His writings indicate that he was familiar with the ways of the country as well as with city life. Dante probably studied rhetoric with the scholar and statesman Brunetto Latini (ca. 1220-1294), from whom he says that he learned “how man makes himself eternal” (Inferno XV. 85), during a period when he was driven by a desire to master the techniques of st
Dante tells us that as a young man he taught himself the art of writing verse (Vita nuova III. 9). In time he became acquainted with the best-known troubadours of Florence, corresponding with them and circulating his own love lyrics. For the youthful Dante, writing poetry gradually became an important occupation, nourished by his sincere love for art and learning, and his interest in the nature of genuine love. Equally significant at this time was his friendship with the wealthy, aristocratic poet Guido Cavalcanti (ca. 1255-1300). Guido exerted a strong influence on his early poetic endeavors. This period was also marked by the death of Dante’s father (ca. 1283), and by his marriage to Gemma, a gentlewoman of the Donati family. The marriage had been arranged by Dante’s father in 1277, well before his death. Gemma and Dante had two sons, Pietro and Jacopo, and at least one daughter. (There exist the names of two daughters, Antonia and Beatrice, but they could refer to the same person, the second, Beatrice, being a monastic name.) Dante’s marriage and children seem to have had little influence on him as a poet; nowhere in his works does he make direct reference to his wife.
Besides his associations with Guido Cavalcanti and Brunetto Latini, Dante knew well the notary Lapo Gianni and became acquainted later on with the youthful Cino da Pistoia. Both of these men were poets. Dante was also on friendly terms with the musician Casella (Purgatorio II. 76-114), about whom there exists little information. The artists Oderisi da Gubbio and Giotto may also have been among his acquaintances. A comrade chosen with far less discrimination, perhaps, was Forese Donati (Purgatorio XXIII), a kinsman of Dante’s wife and a regular rogue, with whom Dante had an exchange of reproaches and coarse insults in sonnet form. The exchange may have begun only as a joke in a moment of good humor.
Along with Guido, Dante refined and developed his poetic skill in Latin and began to distinguish himself in his art from the other writers of the time. In their poetry Dante and Guido presented their ideas on the nature of love and its ability to contribute to the inner perfection of man. Guido, however, was more interested in natural philosophy than was Dante, who, because of his more artistic orientation, favored the study and emulation of the Latin poets. He particularly admired Virgil, from whom he learned so much about matters of style. Though Dante was deeply influenced in his writing by the example of his friend Guido, he eventually responded to his own artistic temperament, to his study of Virgil, and to the example provided by a more recent poetic master, Guido Guinizzelli (ca. 1230-1276). The result was a shift to composition in the vernacular, a poetic innovation that is praised by Bonagiunta Orbicianni in the Purgatorio (XXIV. 49-62).
Dante’s life and writings were also influenced by his acquaintance with a noble Florentine woman of outstanding grace and beauty. He had named her among the sixty fairest women of Florence, but it was not until later that the poet truly “discovered” her. This revelation proved to be an extremely powerful force in his artistic development. According to the testimony of Boccaccio and others, the woman, called Bice, was the daughter of Folco Portinari of Florence. She later became the wife of the banker Simone de’ Bardi. Dante called her Beatrice, “the bringer of blessings, ” the one who brought bliss to all who looked upon her.
Dante claims to have met Beatrice for the first time when he was nine years old. Theirs was not an easy relationship, for Beatrice took offense at the attention he paid other women. The resulting rebuff caused Dante great sorrow. His emotional attachment to Beatrice brought him to idealize her more and more as the guide of his thoughts and feelings, as the one who would lead him toward the inner perfection that is the ideal of every noble mind. In his poems Dante praises his lady as a model of virtue and courtesy, a miraculous gift given to earth by God to ennoble and enrich all those who appreciated her qualities. Such an exalted view of this woman was bound to carry with it the fear that she would not remain long in this life; in fact, premature death did befall her. Beatrice’s father died first, and then she died on June 8, 1290. Dante was overcome with grief at his loss. There followed a period of contemplating Beatrice’s significance after her death. After the first anniversary of her death, another woman, who is never mentioned by name, succeeded in winning Dante’s affection for a brief time. However, Beatrice soon came vividly to mind again, and while feeling guilt and remorse for having neglected the memory of her, Dante reaffirmed his fidelity to her. This experience prompted him to gather together all the poems he had written in her honor, in an attempt to celebrate her virtue. This collection, to which Dante added a commentary on the meaning and occasion of each poem, became the little volume that he called the Vita nuova (New Life), about which I shall have more to say later on in this essay.
During all of this time Dante’s passion for study had continued unabated. His vision had been broadened by the reading of Boethius and Cicero. The dissemination of Aristotle’s works on physical and metaphysical subjects brought recognition of the need to harmonize the ideas of the great guide of human reason with the truths and teachings of the faith. Dante, by now a grown man, was attracted to many of the new schools and universities that were operating under the tutelage of the new religious orders. Among the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians were many eminent teachers and scholars. In this brisk intellectual environment of around 1290 Dante applied his energies to philosophy with such fervor that “in a short time, perhaps thirty months, ” he began “to be so keenly aware of her sweetness that the love of her drove away and destroyed every other thought” (Convivio II. 2.7). Dante read so much, it seems, that his eyes were weakened considerably because of it. Among Christian scholars and theologians, he certainly read Saint Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Saint Augustine, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Saint Bonaventura, Saint Bernard, and Peter Lombard. In the area of history he took up Livy and Paulus Orosius, among others. Evidence of this extensive course of study found its way into his poetry as he became interested in the glorification of philosophy as mistress of the mind. Dante also treated questions of moral philosophy, such as nobility and courtship, in a number of beautifully composed canzoni, or odes. Nevertheless, in spite of this ardent pursuit of philosophical matters he retained his view of love as the most important force behind noble actions and lofty endeavors. To his appreciation of the Latin poets he added an admiration for the Provençal troubadours, and this encouraged him to attempt new poetic techniques that would serve him well in his later writings.
Along with his spiritual and intellectual activities Dante engaged in civic enterprises as well. In 1289 he had fought on the Guelf side at the battle of Campaldino. In 1295 he began an active public life, and within a few years he became an important figure in Florentine politics. He had joined the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries in order to participate in government (except for certain offices, government was closed to those without guild affiliation), and there is evidence that he served as a member of the People’s Council of the Commune of Florence (1295), on the Council for Election of the Priors of the City (1295), and on the Council of the Hundred (1296), a body that dealt with finance and other important civic matters.
This was a time of political ferment and instability. Between 1215 and 1278 the Guelfs and Ghibellines of Florence had engaged in a bitter struggle for power, with numerous reversals of fortune for both sides, countless plots and conspiracies, and frequent expulsion orders issued against whoever was on the losing side. The Guelfs finally prevailed. Around 1300, however, there occurred a split in the Guelf party into two very hostile factions: the Blacks and the Whites. The Blacks, staunch Guelfs, remained in control of the commune. The Whites eventually associated themselves with the Ghibellines. Dante, meanwhile, fought to preserve the independence of Florence, and repeatedly opposed the schemes of Pope Boniface VIII, who wanted to place Florence and all of Tuscany under the control of the C
In 1301 Boniface summoned Charles of Valois and his army to Italy in an attempt to neutralize anti-Church forces in Florence. It was at this time, as Charles approached the city, that Dante was sent as one of three envoys on behalf of the commune to the pope, in order to request a change in papal policy toward the city and to protest the intrigues of the Blacks. After the initial talks the other envoys were dismissed, but Dante was retained. During his absence Charles of Valois entered Florence, and the Blacks staged a revolution and gained complete control of the commune. Dante found himself sentenced to exile on trumped-up charges of graft, embezzlement, opposition to the pope and his forces, disturbance of the peace of Florence, and a number of other transgressions. Dante always felt that his difficulties had been brought on by the trickery of Boniface, and this only aggravated his already pronounced hatred for the pontiff and his methods. When Dante failed to appear to answer the charges against him, and when he did not pay the fine levied against him for his “crimes, ” a second sentence was imposed: should he ever return to the commune, he would be seized and burned alive. There is no evidence that Dante saw his beloved Florence again.
In 1302, shortly after his banishment, Dante conspired with his fellow exiles, most of them Whites, to regain admission to Florence. However, disapproving of their machinations and possibly in danger of his life because of their violence, he abandoned them and set off on his own to lead the life of an exiled courtier. It appears that he first took refuge with the Scala family at Verona. He is believed to have visited the university at Bologna, where he had been known since 1287. This visit probably occurred after the death in 1304 of his generous patron, Bartolommeo della Scala. It is generally thought that Dante traveled extensively in Italy, particularly in the north. He may have been in Padua in 1306. During that same year he appeared in Lunigiana with the Malaspina family, and it was probably then that he went to the mountains of Casentino, on the upper Arno. It is also thought that he went to Paris sometime between 1307 and 1309.